[veddox]

We are the SMD, an association of Christian student unions in Germany. Although we do have some supporting full-time staff members, all of the work in our local chapters and quite a bit of the work in our national leadership is the responsibility of student volunteers (like myself).

Speaking locally: if we as students want something to happen, we make it happen - if we don't, it doesn't. Obviously, attendance at our events varies widely between term-time and holiday-time, but we do have enough active members to guarantee our weekly meetings taking place whenever.

Of course, recruiting new active members is a constant and central challenge, but thankfully, my group has been able to maintain a pretty good level (~20 active members out of ~60 regular visitors). Most of the work our regional full-time staff do relates to coaching these active members, and especially the group leaders they elect each semester.

Does that answer your questions, or did you want to know something else too?

[portroyal]

I was probing for the nature of your org because I hail from one of the largest student housing coops in Canada. It sounds nice at first, but the headaches/politics/etc are proportionately sized. We instituted terms of office for board execs some 6/7 years ago, though the internal power structures that people spoke about in this thread are very much a thing here.

It was a soberly disappointing read, if I'm being honest. When you say, "if we as students want something to happen, we make it happen - if we don't, it doesn't", I wish I could jam that into the minds of our members. That said, there was a post on HN about loneliness the other day that had over 1000 comments, and I believe that's exacerbated in our metropolitan city; an existential threat to the cooperative spirit. We're working on it, will continue.

PS: Greetings, and blessings, from Canada.

[veddox]

I wish you all the best, and thank you for the greetings! :-)